ITV’s latest drama miniseries, The Reunion – adapted from Guillaume Musso’s bestselling novel La Jeune Fille et la Nuit – has all the ingredients of a perfect mystery thriller: shot in the sunny south of France, and starring a brooding leading man with a dark secret he’s desperate to hide. What’s not to like? Turns out, a lot.
Told from the point of view of successful author, Thomas (Ioan Gruffudd), the series follows two timelines in his life: the present day and his time in high school 25 years prior. In school, Thomas and his three friends – Maxime (Grégory Fitoussi), Fanny (Vahina Giocante), and Vinca (Ivanna Sakhno) – were inseparable, and he was quite obviously infatuated with Vinca, who mysteriously disappears one night, never to be seen again.
But in the present day, the three remaining friends have grown apart. That is until Thomas receives an invitation to a school reunion, with a sinister message scribbled on the back. Despite friends begging him to stay away, he is determined to uncover the truth of what happened to Vinca, as well as cover up his involvement in the body of his former teacher, Alexis Clement (Nicolas Robin), being concealed within the school’s gym wall – a wall on the verge of demolition.
And yet another spanner is thrown into the works. An old friend, Manon (Shemss Audat), is now a local police officer, who eventually teams up with another former classmate, Pianelli (Matthias Van Khache) – a journalist – to investigate the increasingly suspicious clues appearing in the gym, which begin to unravel secrets that have stayed hidden for 25 years.
Captivating, right? Not really – despite The Reunion’s intriguing premise, the show ultimately loses its battle against sloppy storytelling and overly confusing timelines. A lack of clarity in the order of events from Thomas’s past results in a whirlwind of flashbacks that are a struggle to decipher. Pieces of valuable information from the past uncover themselves in what feels like a random order, and trying to keep up with who is who feels like a juggling act.
Significant reunions between characters in the present day become confusing when they appear long before we are made privy to their past relationships. The history behind Pianelli’s smarmy demeanour around Thomas is not even hinted at until deep into the second episode, at which point it is too little, too late.
In addition, each character seems to be engaged in a sprint to be the least likeable, and are about neck-and-neck. Even the missing Vinca is lacking personality, instead appearing as a vessel for men to project their desires onto – Thomas in particular. Not awarded any distinct interests or desires of her own, her characteristics are limited to ‘pretty’ and ‘missing’.
Neither the cat nor the mouse in this slow-burn chase is particularly captivating. Gruffudd’s Thomas has all the traits of a charming yet haunted leading man, but lacks heart, which translates as arrogant and uninteresting. Audat’s character, too, lacks enough depth to keep the audience engaged in her pursuit of the truth.
Regardless of any kind of payoff that may still be to come, attempts at twists and turns in The Reunion’s early stages remain unremarkable; the storyline is slow and confusing, the characters sorely lacking in charisma. Not even the charming backdrop of southern France can make up for it.
